The best analogy for the justification of the takeover of Australia by quoting British or international law is in the 'Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy', when the Earth is destroyed by the Vogons to make way for a new Hyperspace Bypass.

The Vogons didn't see any legal need to desist from destroying the earth, or to consult with the Earthians, because after all, they were working under Galactic law. They were certain they were justified in applying Galactic Law to Earth, even if the Earthians had never heard of it.

The concept of no legislation without representation predates the discovery / settlement / invasion (disinvastlement?) of Australia, and led to the American War of Independence.

Whether or not the Aborigines 'owned' the land in the British legal sense is irrelevant. They owed no allegiance to either British or international law because they had no representation in those laws.

'Whether or not the Aborigines 'owned' the land in the British legal sense is irrelevant. They owed no allegiance to either British or international law because they had no representation in those laws.'

Cossomby narrative shows exactly why aboriginals have continued to commit crime, get locked up and maintain a victim mentality. He/she shows why so called 'academics'will continue to promote the chip on the shoulder attitude to keep these people in welfare and crime. Oh well it makes the black arm brigade able to carry false guilt for the rest of us. Thankfully their are a few Indigenous leaders who are now starting to challenge such rot after decades of guilt money/handouts achieving on ly more drunkedness, more child abuse and more prison. I wonder why the incarcaration rates are so high?Drrrr!

Foxy,

The use of the Mabo findings on mainland Australia was and is ridiculous, it's like saying that Irish Brehon Law could apply to Europe.

Mer is an island out of sight of the Australian mainland and far from sharing law and traditions the people of Mer only occasionally had a meal with the mainlanders, and that was not a cultural link but a purely gastronomic one when the Islanders cooked and ate a Mainlander.

The High Court's judgement in the Mabo case
resulted in the introduction of the doctrine
of Native Title into Australian law, removing
the myth of terra nullius and establishing a
legal framework for Native Title claims by
Indigenous Australians. Hence it's importance.

Runner, there is an element of truth in what you say, but you still seem not to understand why.
The British just said to the Aborigines - obey our laws or you are in trouble. They did not ask what the local law was (just assumed it didn't exist). They just stated: we, and our law, are now in charge, like it or lump it.
Why should the Aborigines have accepted it? They fought back in places but were smart enough to see that they were out-numbered and out-gunned and generally gave up and tried to come to some accommodation. The British, becoming Australians, just expected them to die out. They didn't and we are all, black and white, dealing with the consequences.
So runner, when the Voltrons (or the Chinese) take over and impose their laws, are you are going to be a good little lad and do what they say? What if everything you have is taken away? Your land, your house, your language, your culture? You'll fight back? But they've got bigger guns, and some nasty diseases - your children, relatives and friends die around you. You realise you have totally and absolutely lost.
Some of your descendants go mad, others escape by means of those amazing new drugs the new masters sell you, some shrug and say why bother, we'll take what we can get. Probably they'd end up in crime (well, crime under the new laws that the new regime never consulted you about), drunkenness etc. Even if you decided, I'll make the most of the new system, what if you and your descendants get blocked for generations from education, land ownership, real careers?
So put yourself in that situation. What would encourage you to be ambitious and improve your lot under the Voltron regime? Then you might think how this might apply to Aboriginal people.
(But do try and ignore the Voltrons waffling on about false guilt and black-arm bands. Of course you could remind them that they should consider what they'd do if (when) it happens to them too.)

Dearest Foxy,

The Mabo case was very hard-fought, on both sides. If it had been mounted by anybody from an Aboriginal group, relying on traditional land-use as Keiki Mabo did, I doubt that it would have won: as Is Mise hinted, the Mer Islanders used the land differently, they settled on and cultivated the land privately or in small family units, as subsistence farmers, and also had specific marking stones out from the shore to demarcate individual and family-owned fishing grounds.

In other words, they definitely did NOT use the land in the same way to that Aboriginal people did: they cultivated, and privatised, the land, and lived in settled villages. Could they have gained recognition if they had been foragers, and not settled cultivators ? I'm not so sure.

Elsewhere in the British colonies, throughout the colonial period, British authoriti4es recognised whatever the land-use and -ownership may have been: check out the 'Land' Page on my web-site: www.firstsources.info for reference to C. K. Meek's comprehensive work (1948) on Colonial land policy.

Love always,

Joe